The story of Plymouth native and Marine Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III is a tragic one. In 2006, Hutchins, then 22, and six other Marines and a Navy corpsman, serving in the Iraq War, were accused of conspiring to kidnap and murder Hashim Ibrahim Awad, 52, a retired Iraqi policeman, and posing his body with weapons to make it appear as though he were an insurgent. Hutchins said that at the time, he believed Awad was an insurgent.

The shooting death became known as the Hamdania incident, as it occurred in the village of Hamdania. Most of the young enlisted men pleaded guilty to various lesser charges. One was found guilty of conspiracy to murder and bumped down to the rank of private. In August 2007, Hutchins, a third-generation Marine, was found guilty of murder. He was sentenced to 15 years in Fort Leavenworth. The others each served fewer than 18 months.

Oddly, in May 2008, the military reduced his sentence to 11 years, and then in April 2010, the military appeals court overturned his conviction, citing a lack of a fair trial. The reason given was that his primary lawyer left shortly before Hutchins' trial got underway.

In 2011, his sentence was reinstated, and then in July 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces heard Hutchins' appeal based on claims that his Fifth Amendment rights to due process were violated. It seems after his detainment, Hutchins was placed in solitary confinement and interrogated for a week by Naval Criminal Investigative Services even though Hutchins asked for a lawyer.

Even more disturbing, Hutchins' legal team claimed that in 2009, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus publicly stated Hutchins didn't deserve clemency even as Hutchins was seeking it. According to Reuters, a few months after Mabus made those comments, Hutchins' appeal was denied by the clemency board.

In June 2013, the military's highest court overturned Hutchins' conviction a second time. After serving more than half his sentence, Hutchins was free.

Until Monday.

The Marine Corps has once again sought to charge Hutchins with murder.

On the surface, this appears to be an overzealous prosecution of an enlisted man, who has had his conviction overturned twice. If this were a civilian court, we doubt it would be pursued a third time.

There seems to be little question that Hutchins and his brothers in arms were guilty of a moral and legal crime. However, the disparities in how the Corps has pursued prosecution cast an even deeper shadow over an already dark incident.

We appreciate the Marine Corps' reason for wanting to pursue the case – that if it weren't to do so, then it would discredit itself. But we wonder if by pursuing this case past the point of two reversals, an unconstitutional interrogation and a questionable intrusion by the secretary of the navy, if the upper echelon of the Marine Corps hasn't already done just that.